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AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Cloud identity, permissions, policies, roles, and access security. Follow the lessons in order.

Learning path

  1. IAM Complete Guide
  2. Formatted HTML version

Topics covered

  • What IAM is and its core building blocks
  • Users, groups, roles, and instance profiles
  • Policy types (identity, resource, managed, inline, boundaries, SCPs)
  • Policy JSON structure and evaluation logic
  • IAM roles in depth (EC2, Lambda, cross-account, service roles)
  • Federated access, IAM Identity Center (SSO), and MFA
  • Access keys and programmatic access
  • IAM Access Analyzer, Policy Simulator, and CLI
  • Troubleshooting AccessDenied
  • Security best practices and audit checklist

Quick navigation

Topic Section
Core concepts Guide
Users vs roles Guide
Policy types Guide
Policy JSON Guide
Evaluation logic Guide
Roles deep dive Guide
SSO / federation Guide
MFA and security Guide
CLI and tools Guide
Troubleshooting Guide
Best practices Guide
IAM fundamentals (users, groups, roles, policies)
   ↓
Policy JSON and evaluation logic
   ↓
IAM roles for services (EC2, Lambda)
   ↓
MFA, password rules, access keys
   ↓
Federation / IAM Identity Center
   ↓
Cross-account access
   ↓
Access Analyzer, auditing, and troubleshooting

The Markdown guide is the best version for reading directly on GitHub. The HTML version is provided for browser viewing, printing, or saving as PDF.

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